A Brief Introduction to Fear
by ShadoutCarver
Summary: Goren has an encounter of the Buffy kind


A Short Introduction to Fear

Disclaimer:

BtVS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. Law & Order: Criminal Intent characters belong to Dick Wolf, NBC and USA Network.

Buffy post season 7. LO:CI Season 7 between episodes 9 and 11

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NYPD Detective Robert Goren rarely felt uneasy. Well, not walking alone at night. Not between his neighborhood bar and the refuge of his home. The night was as quiet as it ever got in this part of the city. Too quiet. He stopped for a moment, listening. Feeling. He shook his head in self disgust.

_I drank too much tonight_. he thought. _I have been away from work too long._ The first week of his suspension had been almost restful. He had needed that time, he knew. Now he was in a mindless rut.

He had been spending all too much time prowling New York video game arcades or in his local bar.

The uneasiness grew. He was being watched. He shook his head again, trying to shake off the unfamiliar spookiness he was feeling. He started when the woman appeared, noiselessly gliding out of the dark shadows of the nearby alley.

She was beautiful, and took his breath away. Her movements seemed inhuman, feline. Predatory. Goren couldn't move. He tried to speak. All he managed was a wordless stutter. Her smile mesmerized him. He felt his legs weaken.

The woman reached for his hand with a graceful motion and pulled him effortlessly into the shadows. She was purring.

"You are a tall one, child."

Goren did not, could not, resist the pull of the woman. A voice in the back of his mind kept warning him to get away. Her eyes held him, a rope that pulled him into the deep shadows of the alley with her. .

The quiet voice in his mind rose in volume. It became a keening wail when her face – changed. A horrible visage replaced the stunning face, even though her body retained it's lovely shape. Fangs. _She has fangs. _He realized that the keening in the back of his mind was now softly emerging from his throat.

The monster was lifting his right hand to her lips. Her eyes still holding his captive. She caressed his wrist, licked, bit. There was pain now, but he still could not resist. Then the pain turned to pleasure. His soft keening turned into a low moan.

He was never quite certain what happened next. Goren was sure he would never even try to describe it to anyone. Ever. Somehow, even as he grew light headed from loss of blood, he managed to pull the backup handgun he had kept for self defense. He even managed to get a shot off. The shot hit the monster in the chest. She paused briefly to flash a feral bloodstained smile at him. "Its not that easy, child" she purred then raised his wrist to her lips again.

Then her form looked dusty and her eyes went wide. Her body flashed from a dusty form to a dusty skeleton and was gone. A girl stood there instead, holding a wooden stake. A sardonic smile lit her face. "Wow, I'm impressed." she said in a serious voice that was in contrast to her expression.

"Mary?" he gaped at his neighbor, a girl no older than fourteen.

"Hi, Mr. Goren." she said, taking his bleeding hand in hers. "You actually managed to get a shot off." She said, cleaning his wrist with a rather tattered handkerchief she pulled from her pocket. She folded it into a square and pressed it against the two small puncture wounds he saw were still bleeding.

His mind was in shock, incapable of more than a few sluggish thoughts. _She's wounded_, he thought, I _shot her_. "You're hurt" he said, feeling horribly guilty. Then "What.. who... where... she was real" he stuttered, looking at his wrist. "What happened? She changed. She..." his words trailed off into unintelligible confused stutters.

"It's OK Mr. Goren." the slight girl said as she tightened his watch over the bandage she had made of the folded handkerchief on his wounds. "I heal quick. I'm just surprised you could get your gun out and fire it. They don't do much good, though. Not against Vamps." He stumbled and snorted. She looked at him with that same sardonic smile. "Yeah, I said Vamps. Vampires, bloodsuckers, leeches, fangfaces. Dust, after I meet them."

Goren felt his mouth working but nothing emerged. Mary, his young neighbor, always in pigtails and dainty pink or purple flowery outfits, was standing in front of him wearing a black gi and a black ball cap. She had several wooden stakes in her belt. A large-ish silver cross hung from a silver chain on her neck. And she had a crossbow slung across her back. _A crossbow? Mary the altar girl is a ninja?_

"That one was Lizzie. She was over 300 years old. We heard she was in town. I was trying to track her."

Goren just stared at his diminutive young neighbor. She giggled and for a moment sounded like the carefree child he knew from his apartment building. Mary reached for his uninjured arm.

"Come on, Mr Goren. Don't worry. You'll sleep for a while. You should stay home for a few days. Call for takeout for food. I can run for groceries if you need something. Drink a lot of fluids, you've lost a lot of blood. You need to take it easy for a few days."

Goren stared at her. "But you've been shot."

She giggled again. "Don't worry, Mr. Goren, we heal fast. You're a policeman, its your job to find bad people. I'm a slayer. We fight evil things that hunt for human blood in the dark."

Goren slumped against the bricks of the alley way wall.

"Come on, Mr. Goren." said Mary.

And he allowed the slip of a girl -- _slayer_ --to lead him home.


End file.
